Our new Mockingbird Logo T shirts are now in stock in the Phish.net store in navy blue and charcoal in (almost) all sizes. Front has Mockingbird Foundation logo, back identifies you as one of many "PHISH FANS HELPING KIDS MAKE MUSIC SINCE 1996". More photos of front and back of shirt in both colors and other info just posted in this Phish.net forum post here.

Welcome to the 326th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the third of May. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the two mystery clips. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Hint:

Answer: Congrats to @jimsleftear, who once again made fantastic use of his good ear in cracking this week's MJM and correctly identifying the 12/1/03 "Tweezer" and the 10/9/99 "Ghost" for his fourth win. As discussed in the comments section below, this week's hint was a picture of an Albanian Jam (you can tell by clicking the link because it has the word "Albania" in it), as a reference to the fact that this week's jams were Albanian Jams – both were played at Pepsi Arena (fka Knickerbocker Arena / cka Times Union Center) in Albany, NY, the site of the Fall Tour opener and a favorite of @wumbo, who once again designed and mixed this week's clips. Next week we'll step the difficulty up once more with a triple clipper for MJM327: after all, 3 tripled is 27.

@wforwumbo applies machine learning to binaural hearing theory, and is putting the finishing touches on his doctorate in architectural acoustics this summer. His research focuses on the effects that a room has on performed music and how we perceive sound in space – he does so by building computational models that simulate and extend human hearing. He is also a classically-trained musician and an electrical engineer with a keen interest in digital audio signal processing; he designs and implements filters and transforms to manipulate audio, which he brings to his studio production and mixing engineering work. His obsession with audio doesn’t end there though, as he has recently ventured into the tapers’ section to record live music. Thankfully for us at Phish.net HQ, @wforwumbo is a huge fan of Phish and Phish.net, and has begun contributing to the site, both working to expand and improve the Jam Charts and helping to craft (and remix!) Mystery Jam Monday puzzles. Today, he will kick off a new regular blog series, “From the Tapers’ Section,” wherein he will draw from several different parts of his massive toolkit to not only bring Phish fans brand new mixes of audience recordings from classic Phish shows, but he’ll also share both his deep technical knowledge and discerning musical perspectives of the shows and the recordings thereof. - @ucpete

Drawing from my experience as both a live taper and a studio production engineer, I frequently manipulate my back catalog of live Phish tapes to my personal preference on reference listening systems. I have spent lots of time working with studio tools; it’s a labor of love, always trying to craft and sculpt sound - to let the tape get out of the way between me and the music. I do want to make one thing explicitly clear here: I am not the definitive voice. I am not touting that these are the “correct” way to listen to shows. I’m not even claiming that these will be preferable to your current tape of a show. Because at the end of the day, the sole rule of “good” audio is that only YOU can decide what sounds best. In fact, that’s the most important bit of advice I give to everyone when they ask me about audio: trust your ears. My tastes may not be the same as yours, and that’s okay - there’s plenty of room for all of us in the fan base.

Now with that being said, one intent of this taping series is to encourage the distribution and usage of audience-recorded tapes (“AUDs”). Tape trading has an incredibly rich and storied history, and is a large part of why many of us are into Phish. One of my favorite endeavors in digging through my catalog of tapes is comparing two different recordings and correlating their strengths and weaknesses to my personal preferences. This furthers my taping and production work by thinking about how to capture and manipulate sound, including the layouts, techniques, and gear that I use. To me, it’s lots of fun to think about and understand the intricacies of a given microphone and preamp, the recording location inside of a venue, or what experience I want from a tape (immersion? stereo image? frequency balance? more Mike? etc.). This blog series is in part an attempt to share my notes and thoughts on specific tapes to highlight different aspects of a show that you might not have heard before.

Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

PHISH will be playing fourteen shows this Fall, including three in Hampton and four in Vegas. And two in Nashville and three in Chicago. And the tour begins on October 16 in Albany, where they'll be two shows at the "Times Union Center."

Although the general ticket onsale isn't until June 1, tickets are available through the Phish Tickets lottery (request period ends May 29 at 9am et).

Welcome to the 325th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the second of May. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the songs and dates of the two mystery clips. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

Beyond the Pond is a bi-weekly podcast in which Brian Brinkman (@sufferingjuke) and David Goldstein (@daveg924) use the music of Phish as a gateway to introduce the listener to many other bands, the vast majority of which are not jambands. An episode generally begins with a deep dive into a designated portion of Phish improvisation, and then can spin off to any variety of musical themes and other acts, the overarching purpose being introducing the listener to as many new and different bands as possible.

Welcome to the 324th edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the first* and easiest of May. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of the mystery clip. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one answers correctly in the first 24 hours, I'll post a hint. After the hint, everyone gets one more guess before Wednesday at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Good luck!

*Reminder: For the first MJM of each month, only folks who have never won an MJM are allowed to answer before the hint. If you have never won an MJM, please answer as a blog comment below. If you have previously won an MJM, but you'd like to submit a guess beforethe hint, you may do so by PMing me; once the hint has been posted, everyone should answer on the blog. If that's confusing to you, check out the handy decision tree I threw together to help guide you. If you're not sure if you've won before, check in the MJM Results spreadsheet linked below.

Answer: Congrats to @patper on his first MJM win! As has become typical around these parts, it didn't take the winner too long to figure out this week's jam: the DEG-infused 5/9/92 "Tweezer," played 26 years ago today. MJM325 in five...

[Fyi. You do NOT have to be a student in order to register for this class. It's open to all. -charlie]

Now you can READ THE BOOK and take the field trip!

For the fifth summer in a row, Dr. Stephanie Jenkins will teach the “Philosophy School of Phish” course—more formally called the “Philosophy of Art and Music”—via Oregon State University’s Ecampus program. Using the band as a case study, the course focuses on themes about the nature and significance of art and music. As part of their required course work, students attend three Phish concerts—in person or via webcast—and conduct philosophical interviews with artists from the Phish community. Learning about theories of art and music experientially helps students actively engage with the philosophical content and learn more about the Phish community.

This week we're thrilled to have author and podcaster Steven Hyden back on the show, this time to talk about his new book, Twilight of the Gods. There's a lot of Phish content and conversation. It comes out on May 8, but you can pre-order it now. We highly recommend this book. This is part 1 of our conversation with Steven, part 2 will come out in 2 weeks.

Welcome to the 323rd edition of Phish.Net's Mystery Jam Monday, the final and most difficult puzzle of April. The winner will receive an MP3 download code courtesy of our friends at LivePhish.com / Nugs.Net. To win, be the first person to identify the song and date of these three mystery clips, which are connected by a theme that needn't be part of the correct answer. Each person gets one guess to start – if no one guesses correctly, I will post a hint on Tuesday around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. After the hint, each person gets one more guess before the contest ends Wednesday, and the winner announced shortly thereafter. Good luck!

Answer: Congrats to @shelfofpregnanthens who so stupendously crushed what I thought to be a difficult MJM – thanks to @WayIFeel for the sweet puzzle, and thanks to @wforwumbo for making the recordings sound even sweeter. @shelfofpregnanthens knew right away that this MJM reeked of August '93, and made it look as easy as 1-2-3 in identifying the 8/11/93 "Stash," the 8/12/93 "Reba," and the 8/13/93 "Llama," three jams from three consecutive shows on one of Phishest earliest famous months. That's two wins for him now. Speaking of easy: check out MJM324 Monday!

The origins of “Powderfinger,” easily one of Neil Young’s most anthemic songs (and his third most often performed) stretch back to the 1960s. It wouldn’t be finished until 1975 when Young recorded the original acoustic demo about a family who lives on the edge of the law for Chrome Dreams, one of several albums Neil recorded in the 1970s but didn’t see fit to release. Some artists are prolific enough to leave a legacy of great unreleased songs. Neil Young has multiple unreleased albums. Though several tracks from Chrome Dreams would end up on 1977’s American Stars ‘n Bars, “Powderfinger” was not among them. ...

Today, Phish continued their festival tradition that began at The Clifford Ball, and announced plans for their eleventh festival: Curveball. Curveball will take place August 17-19, 2018 at Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, NY, the site of 2011's Super Ball IX and 2015's Magnaball.

PHISH will be returning to the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey's to begin their summer tour on July 17. After two shows in Tahoe, they head to the Gorge for three shows (July 20-21-22), followed-by four more shows on the west coast: two shows at the Bill Graham Civic in SF (July 24-25), and two shows at the Forum in Inglewood (July 27-28). The tour then continues for 12 additional shows, with stops in Austin, TX; Alpharetta, GA; Camden, NJ; Raleigh, NC; Columbia, MD; and, of course, three Dick's shows over Labor Day Weekend.

Within the next week, the all-volunteer Mockingbird Foundation will announce sixteen new grants in music education totalling more than $137,000. That will bring Mockingbird's total grants for 2017 alone to more than $250,000, and the Foundation's historical total to over $1.27M.

This will be the largest outlay of grants by Mockingbird in a single round, due largely to the tremendous and ongoing support of individual fan donations. Every donation helps, whether one dollar or a thousand. There's still time to make a tax-deductible contribution for 2017, or to setup a monthly "subscription" donation that builds over time, or perhaps even secure an employer match - and we're happy to help, if you need the Foundation's IRS letter or EIN.

Wherever you are today and for the rest of the year, we want you to know that we appreciate the support you've given us, on Phish.net and for Mockingbird. We hope your days are filled with music, this week and always, and we look forward to doing even more - on this site, and for music education - in 2018. See you there!

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The Mockingbird Foundation

The Mockingbird Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Phish fans in 1996 to generate charitable proceeds from the Phish community.

And since we're entirely volunteer – with no office, salaries, or paid staff – administrative costs are less than 2% of revenues! So far, we've distributed over $1,000,000 to support music education for children – hundreds of grants in all 50 states, with more on the way.